


rotten work

by Spineless



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: M/M, Marijuana, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Non-Consensual Drug Use, drugged food, not a crackfic!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23767009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spineless/pseuds/Spineless
Summary: After Morse accidentally eats some laced food while working on a case, Max looks after him to make sure he's okay.
Relationships: Max DeBryn/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 7
Kudos: 56





	rotten work

**Author's Note:**

> I hope everyone has been healthy and safe! title from anne carson's 2009 translation of euripides' 408 BCE Orestes! more notes at the end

Rejecting the marijuana cigarette was probably a mistake. There was a moment – the offering gloved hand hovered for a second too long in stilted hesitation – he realized he missed something. It was the opposite of a _eureka!_ moment of palpable discovery. It felt like he had miscalculated the amount of steps on a staircase and his foot was falling through open air. 

But the moment ended and the gentleman holding the tightly rolled cylinder––Mr Lovelace, a suspected link in a dangerous chain of drug dealers and the man Morse was supposed to be spying on––smiled indulgently and withdrew his hand. “Not your vice, Mister Em?” 

That close, Morse could see millimeters of black roots against the man’s scalp, ruining the blond facade. He could smell his cologne, as well as the pungent herbal scent of the cigarette. The pulse in his wrist fluttered against his pressed cuff.

“No.” He held up his glass and tilted it towards Lovelace. A drop or two of amber liquid still coated the bottom. “But I am not without.” 

“Mmm.” The gentleman pulled a book of matches from his trouser pocket and sparked up his joint. “No man is.” 

At the time, aside from that singular moment, nothing seemed amiss. Morse didn’t stay much longer. Despite his best efforts, he lost and kept losing his target. The final time Morse had seen him, Mr Lovelace himself had come dashing up to him, an acquired tray of hors d’oeuvres in his hands. “Em, I haven’t seen you eat a damned thing yet.” He thrust several small pastries onto him and would not drop the issue until he ate all of them. 

Feeling harassed and like he had wasted his time, Morse found his way through the manor house, weaving carefully around groups of pristinely dressed party goers. He walked for a bit along the road until he reached the phone booth he’d spotted on his first drive by of the estate. He called a cab, and when it came he directed it to Cowley. He figured it wasn’t too late, he may as well type up his notes. 

He’s in the cab, now, and realizing that something’s… changing. It’s not an immediate feeling. He more stumbles into it. Staring out the window, mind wandering, he recalls stories of mortals being drawn to fae lairs, tricked into staying there forever because they had been enticed by faerie food. He thinks about Persephone and the Underworld and he thinks about apples and pomegranate seeds. And then he realizes, Lovelace had been playing him all night. From his initial refusal of the joint, his cover had been blown. 

And then, he realizes that he’s _high_. 

It’s softer, somehow, than being drunk, like the edges of his mind are sanded off. At the same time some parts are sharper. This is… nothing like that _other_ time, poisoned lemonade and intolerable, zero summer. A different world ago. Overcome by pure panic and fear and shock, his past roiling with his present, with his future, in his head, in his senses. He watches clouds gather on the horizon, swaddled. It isn’t even properly dark yet. 

The cab stops at the curb outside the station and Morse is faced with the unusually arduous task of paying the driver. He keeps counting and recounting the bills he pulls from his wallet, trying to make sure his sum is correct. His fingers tremble, just a touch, when he finally hands over the money. He removes himself from the car and watches it pull away, he watches until it disappears. Then he turns slowly on his heels and faces the hulking building. He stands there staring, not wanting to go in, but not knowing what to do. He’s trying to think clearly, but his heart is already beginning to speed up. Maybe if he walks fast enough he’ll be able to reach his flat before the high takes over completely. Maybe he can just try and sleep it off. 

Then, the door opens, and frames Max DeBryn in golden light. 

“Well, hello,” he exclaims, eyebrows raising. “Late business?” He lets the door close behind him and steps forward. His eyes are bright behind his glasses. 

Normally, Morse would say something like, _I could ask the same of you_ , he feels the words on his tongue, but can’t manage to say them aloud. He just stares back, his lower lip between his teeth. He needs to move. He needs to go. But Max. He hears his breath hitch. “Of a sort.” His face goes hot with guilt, shame, but he doesn’t know why, what to do about it. His feelings swirl.

“Are you alright? Morse?” 

When did the doctor get so close? His fingers close around his wrist. He doesn’t resist. 

DeBryn stares straight at him––through him, really. The expression on his face is complex and rigid, but mostly alarmed. “Morse,” he says, taking in his red eyes and blown pupils, his posture and the tenseness in his neck, “Are you _stoned_?”

* * *

The upholstery under his fingertips feels like fine silk though it’s anything but. He can’t stop running his hands over it. He feels as if he could melt into his seat. He hears Max rummaging around in his kitchen and has to keep reminding himself it _is_ Max, because sometimes he’s lost in his meandering thoughts and hears a noise and his heart jumps and he thinks theres a burglar in his flat, and then he has to remind himself that it’s just Max, making tea. 

The problem is his thoughts are escaping at an alarming pace. No, not necessarily escaping, it just seems that none of them bother to stay for very long. He wants one to sit for a while, to have a drink and a chat, but they all leave very hurriedly, apologetic. His mind is galavanting inside his skull while his body is being sucked into the only decent chair in the flat.

He looks down and notices he’s only wearing his vest and pajama pants. 

Oh, he thinks. When did that happen?

“Morse.” 

He looks up. Max is standing on the threshold of the kitchen and sitting room, his brow creased. His collar is loosened, his tie draped around his shoulders. Something else he doesn’t remember happening. He fits, somehow, in the dingy flat, two cracked mugs in hand. Morse feels a surge of guilt-shame-fear again, overlaid with something that roils against the weight in his limbs. “I’m sorry,” he says, for the seventeenth time that night, the words bubbling over his lips. 

Max puts the mugs down on the other side of the low table. “Sorry for what?” 

Morse blinks. He presses his hand against his thigh. If he thinks hard enough, he can remember pulling on pajamas in his room, a shaky ride in the little Morris. It had begun to rain. He kneads flesh between his fingertips. He shrugs. “‘To Carthage then I came.’” The record he'd been listening to while getting ready for the party. He hadn't wanted music, just words.

“I don’t take you as a broken Coriolanus.” A hand covers his own. How did the doctor cross the room so quick? “That’s enough. You’ll bruise yourself.” 

But the little bite of pain helps him focus. Well, slightly. Waves ebb and flow in his mind. How long ago was the party? Just a few hours, surely. How much more of this is there? He doesn’t want to think back to last time. He can’t. 

“It’ll pass quicker if you get to bed.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Sorry for what?” 

He laughs. It’s a hollow, scratchy sound. “For me.” 

“Ah, wonderful. I was waiting to see when you’d get maudlin. Come now, to bed.” 

Bed. This worn chair is his bed now, the sitting room is his bedroom now. How can he move? His body feels leaden, it feels like it’s gotten heavier and heavier every second he’s been sitting there.

“Up you get.” Max has his hand on his wrist, again. The touch lightens him, just for a moment, enough that he’s able to stand, with Max pulling him forward and up. 

“You didn’t have to help.”

“You’ve thanked me already.” 

“I don’t remember.” 

“I didn’t expect you to. It’s alright.” 

“Is it? I should’ve known something was wrong.” Like now. His arm is thrown over DeBryn’s shoulder like his tie and he’s standing, but there’s something inherently _wrong_ about being upright. Hard to pinpoint exactly. He misses his chair and can’t feel his knees, there’s something else missing. He’s tired of fighting gravity. He’s so tired.

On the other side of a blink, he’s on the ground. His knees are folded under him and he’s half braced in Max’s arms. Max. He never calls him Max. Just _Doctor._ And despite that, he’s here, stopping his head from smashing into the corner of the coffee table. Drove him home in his stoned stupor. Drove him home in the rain. 

He taps the side of his face lightly. There’s a touch of concern behind his eyes that’s new. “Did you manage to eat anything else? Anything that _wasn’t_ laced, I mean.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“Ah - I’ll take that as a no.” His fingers loosely encircle his wrist, pressed against the soft, translucent skin firm enough to take his pulse.

Something in Morse wants to reach over and take Max’s pulse. Really he wants to hold his wrist, too, his hand. He usually squashes this feeling down. It’s dangerous, foolish to do otherwise, but here, with him so close, well. It almost feels like a dream.

Max helps him rearrange his legs until the two of them are sitting facing each other, both holding a mug. The hot ceramic is grounding, so is the tea, just on this side of scalding and very sweet. But he has no milk, so there’s a bitter edge to it. When _did_ he last eat? Maybe lunch. Damn that Lovelace. Damn his own stupidity. 

“Morse?” 

He holds the cup tighter. Damn his inability to even stand without fainting. “‘You didn’t have to stop.”

“I’m not in the business of leaving people on the kerb to suffer. Even when they may occasionally be insufferable.” 

“You’d aid any stoned vagabond?”

“Probably not. Are you a vagabond?” 

“‘ _Fareforward, travelers_.’” 

“You’re mixing your Eliot. Ready to try again?”

No. He has half a mind to tell Max to leave him there on the floor, to leave a cushion and maybe a blanket, to turn off the light on his way out. It wouldn’t be the first time he couldn’t make it to bed. 

“No.” 

“That’s the spirit.” 

They do manage to get him into bed, eventually. The few sips of tea gives him enough energy to cross the room without diving headfirst for the carpet, allows him to bring the sheets around him. He sighs into his beaten pillow. Now everything is heavy and soft, like he’s being smothered by sheep’s wool. Max drags over a chair. There’s a glass of water on the bedside table,

“Don’t tell Thursday?” His voice is slightly muffled by the pillowcase. 

“I already called him, sorry.”

“When?”

“While you were changing.”

“I don’t remember.”

“That seems to be a trend. Yes, well, your mark drugged you, I figured your incapacitation might be pertinent information to your senior officer. You think you’ll be well enough to go back in the morning?”

A small jolt goes through him. He was ill for days after the lemonade. “Won’t I?”

“You’ll probably sleep for fourteen hours first. Once you get to sleep, that is.” 

“I’m––I’m keeping you. I have been, all night.”

“I told you, I don’t often just leave people to suffer alone.” 

“I’m sure this isn’t how you planned to spend your evening.” It’s all dawning on him now. DeBryn just happened to catch him out of the cab. Just off the street. If he was a moment faster they wouldn’t’ve crossed paths at all. Morse wonders who he would’ve wandered into instead. “You don’t have to stay.” 

“Are you telling me to leave?” So polite. Always so proper. 

No. God, no. He could never. He swallows around something heavy in his throat. “‘Lest those Goddesses should seize me with frenzy.’” 

“Get some sleep, Morse.”

“But you––?”

“I’ll be alright.” Max leans over, presses his hand to his shoulder. 

Morse hadn’t realized he’d started to rise. He rolls back over, buries his face in his pillow, and dreams of the sea.

**Author's Note:**

> -morse was listening to his recording of ts eliot's the waste land and that's what he and max are referencing, except for "Fareforward, travelers" which is from the dry salvages, 3/4 of the quartets. which he also probably has a recording of  
> -‘Lest those Goddesses should seize me with frenzy.’ is a line from Michael Wodhull's 1782 translation of Orestes 
> 
>   
> i found the first half of this fic buried in some files, i started it december 2017 and decided to finish (?) it! who here amongst us has not passed out from an edible and started quoting ts eliot?
> 
> thanks for reading! comments are appreciated! stay safe, everyone


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